New Australian musical NOT FINISHED WITH YOU YET opens next week!
Not Finished With You Yet is a new Australian musical that promises to take audiences on an emotional rollercoaster ride.
Kate and Rupert live in a world where divorce is compulsory at 13 years. As life expectancy has grown from 35 to 85, those extra 50 years make life long marriage unendurable. In this world, everyone must divorce after 13 years.
But Kate and Rupert are still in love.
In this buoyant, occasionally saucy musical, the protagonists fight the system to stay together. Twenty songs explore not only the nature of love in its middle stages but confront middle age issues such as the existential significance of kids (or otherwise), post-menopausal sex, masturbation and male midlife crisis.
With a talented cast of some of Australia’s finest Music Theatre performers including real-life married couple Christie Whelan-Browne and Rohan Browne as Kate and Rupert, Not Finished With You Yet is a must-see for anyone who wants a silly, sexy, saucy, and sometimes even sentimental night at the theatre.
A jack of all trades, Dick Gross is the writer, producer, and composer of the show. An Australian politician, author, and social commentator, Dick was a member of the Australian Labor Party and served as the Mayor of the City of Port Phillip for three terms. Gross has also written several books, and is known for his advocacy on environmental and social issues and social justice. Now, he adds another hat to his stack as a mastermind creative!
What inspired you to write Not Finished With You Yet?
Dick: I wanted to write musicals, and I collaborated with a Jewish friend of mine who has since died of cancer. We were talking about how amazing it was that two fairly unprepossessing and annoying men were still married so many years later. It’s basically a bit of a surprise, the longevity of my own marriage [laughs]. It’s a beautiful thing, a long marriage. We live in a life where I’ve got unlimited choice, except marriage is all about renunciation of choice, so there are some shocking divorces. What I wanted to do was to get both sides of that debate. You know, the fact that I’ve had the mitzvah [blessing] of a long marriage with three children, but by the same token, there are people who have terrible divorces who are alone and lonely. Marriage is all about lifelong marriages, and our longevity has increased from 35 in biblical times to 85 now. And this extra 50 years make a difference to marriage.
What kind of relationships do you portray in the show?
Dick: We’re living in a time of change. Lifelong marriage is my personal experience, but there are other experiences. So we’ve got a gay guy, a woman who is a singleton for life, who has sex with married men, but she doesn’t want to be married. Then we’ve got people who can’t wait to divorce. And then, we’ve got people who can’t wait to divorce and realise they’re incredibly upset when it actually happens. Another point is I wanted to look at love from a middle age perspective, so they’re perimenopausal. We examine love from the sudden, urgent infatuation, love of young people and early marriage, as well as marriages that had to withstand the vicissitudes of time.
How is the show different from other romcom musicals?
Dick: I really wanted to make it rude [laughs]. But I also wanted to address some existential issues! What’s the importance of day and night in providing meaning for your life? If you don’t want to procreate, what what does that mean to you? One of the songs is called “Blood and Destiny,” and it concerns a gay guy who’s looking to have children and spends time looking for a womb. And so I say it goes from eschatology to ontology.
Why should people come and see Not Finished With You Yet?
Dick: Well, I think that a musical is the highest form of art. And it’s local product, I’m sure it speaks to locals more than other people. It’s both funny and dirty, and hopefully, you know, has moments of profundity. It is quite sad in parts, but it’s a comedy, so there are conversations about masturbation… and people running around with strap on penises.
Not Finished With You Yet opens at the Alex Theatre, St. Kilda on Tuesday March 7th.
For tickets and more information, visit the Not Finished With You Yet website.
